Press release from the MacArthur Foundation announcing the 2014 MacArthur Fellows. The program gives “unrestricted $625,000 fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” For photos, video and more information, go to Macfound.org.

Danielle Bassett

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA

Age: 32

Physicist applying mathematical approaches to the analysis and modeling of brain connectivity and enhancing our understanding of how these connections give rise to the functions the brain performs.

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Alison Bechdel

Bolton, VT

Age: 54

Cartoonist and Graphic Memoirist expanding the expressive potential of the graphic form in intricate narratives that explore the complexities of familial relationships.

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Mary L. Bonauto

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Boston, MA

Age: 53

Civil Rights Lawyer breaking down legal barriers based on sexual orientation and gender identity to equal treatment under the law for all, and working to secure the freedom to marry for same-sex couples and the protections, obligations, and dignity marriage affords.

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Tami Bond

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Urbana, IL

Age: 50
Environmental Engineer unraveling the global effects of black carbon emissions, or soot, on climate and human health and playing a key role in understanding the complex relationship between energy and climate change.

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Steve Coleman

M-Base Concepts, Inc.

Allentown, PA

Age: 57

Jazz Composer and Saxophonist infusing iconic spontaneous music idioms with the melodic, rhythmic, and structural components of an eclectic range of musical traditions to create a distinctive new sound.

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Sarah Deer

William Mitchell College of Law

Saint Paul, MN

Age: 41

Legal Scholar and Advocate developing policies and legislation that are empowering tribal authorities and reshaping the landscape of support and protection for Native American women at risk for domestic and sexual violence.

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Jennifer L. Eberhardt

Stanford University

Stanford, CA

Age: 49

Social Psychologist investigating the subtle, complex, largely unconscious yet deeply ingrained ways that individuals racially code and categorize people and the far-reaching consequences of stereotypic associations between race and crime.

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Craig Gentry

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Yorktown Heights, NY

Age: 41

Computer Scientist fueling a revolution in cryptography and theoretical computer science through his breakthroughs in fully homomorphic encryption, leading to the possibility of more secure cloud computing.

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Terrance Hayes

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA

Age: 42

Poet reflecting on race, gender, and family in works that seamlessly encompass both the historical and the personal and subvert canonical forms.

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John Henneberger

Texas Low Income Housing Information Service

Austin, TX

Age: 59

Housing Advocate building collaborations among elected officials, developers, and community residents to preserve and expand the supply of affordable housing and ensure that all Americans have equal access to housing and federal disaster relief.

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Mark Hersam

Northwestern University

Evanston, IL

Age: 39

Materials Scientist drawing on techniques from a variety of fields in investigations of the physical, chemical, and biological properties of nanomaterials, offering new promise for applied uses.

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Samuel D. Hunter

New York, NY

Age: 33

Playwright crafting quietly captivating dramas that explore the human capacity for empathy and confront the socially isolating aspects of contemporary life across the American landscape.

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Pamela O. Long

Washington, DC

Age: 71

Historian of Science and Technology challenging our understanding of the role of scholarship and craftsmanship in Renaissance societies and demonstrating how technologies are deeply enmeshed within the broader cultural fabric.

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Rick Lowe

Project Row Houses

Houston, TX

Age: 53

Public Artist reinventing community revitalization as an art form by transforming a long-neglected neighborhood in Houston into a visionary amalgam of arts venue, community support center, and historic preservation initiative.

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Jacob Lurie

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Age: 36

Mathematician creating a novel conceptual foundation for derived algebraic geometry (DAG) and rewriting large swathes of mathematics from a new point of view.

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Khaled Mattawa

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, MI

Age: 50

Translator and Poet rendering the beauty and meaning of contemporary Arab poetry accessible to an English reader and highlighting the invaluable role of literary translation in bridging cultural divides.

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Joshua Oppenheimer

Copenhagen, Denmark

Age: 39

Documentary Filmmaker illuminating the social, psychological, and emotional dimensions of controversial subjects, such as state-sponsored violence, in works that challenge the modern aesthetic of contemporary documentary cinema in both intimacy of focus and visual construct.

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Ai-jen Poo

National Domestic Workers Alliance

New York, NY

Age: 40

Labor Organizer catalyzing a vibrant, worker-led movement for improved working conditions and labor standards for domestic or private-household workers.

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Jonathan Rapping

Gideon’s Promise

Atlanta, GA

Age: 48

Criminal Lawyer safeguarding the essential democratic right of every American to high-quality legal representation by transforming the practice of indigent defense in the South through training, mentorship, and community.

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Tara Zahra

University of Chicago

Chicago, IL

Age: 38

Historian of Modern Europe combining extensive archival research with broad sociohistorical analysis of notions of nation, family, and ethnicity to construct an integrative, transnational understanding of events in twentieth-century Europe.

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Yitang Zhang

University of New Hampshire

Durham, NH

Age: 59

Mathematician tackling truly hard questions in number theory leading to the first finite bound on a gap between prime numbers and the best possible qualitative approximation of the twin prime conjecture. More

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